rack

Etymology 1

From Middle English rakke, rekke, from Middle Dutch rac, recke, rec (Dutch rek), see rekken.

noun

1. A series of one or more shelves, stacked one above the other
2. Any of various kinds of frame for holding luggage or other objects on a vehicle or vessel.
3. (historical) A device, incorporating a ratchet, used to torture victims by stretching them beyond their natural limits.
4. (nautical) A piece or frame of wood, having several sheaves, through which the running rigging passes.
5. (nautical, slang) A bunk.
   Chief Stevens approached my rack and repeatedly ordered me to vacate my rack and report to the working party. 2008, Byron L. Smith, Prescription Music, page 33
   By the time I had unpacked my sea bag, made my rack, and finished a good long hot shower, it was late in the evening. 2010, Herb Brewer, Chronicles of a Marine Rifleman: Vietnam, 1965-1966, page 171
   I took off my helmet, sat it gently down at the head of my rack on the wooden deck, plopped my butt down on my rack again, and began taking off my stateside assbusting boots. 2016, Cpl. Osborn R. E, Like Killing Rats
6. (nautical, by extension, slang, uncountable) Sleep.
   Do I have to do this now? Like, I really need to get some rack. 2009-12-18, 1:00:07 from the start, in Avatar, spoken by Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), 20th Century Fox
7. A distaff.
8. (mechanical engineering, rail transport) A bar with teeth on its face or edge, to work with those of a gearwheel, pinion, or worm, which is to drive or be driven by it.
   The ladder-type Riggenbach rack is the one in use on both systems. 1960 December, Voyageur, “The Mountain Railways of the Bernese Oberland”, in Trains Illustrated, page 750
9. (mechanical engineering) A bar with teeth on its face or edge, to work with a pawl as a ratchet allowing movement in one direction only, used for example in a handbrake or crossbow.
10. A cranequin, a mechanism including a rack, pinion and pawl, providing both mechanical advantage and a ratchet, used to bend and cock a crossbow.
11. A set of antlers (as on deer, moose or elk).
12. A cut of meat involving several adjacent ribs.
    I bought a rack of lamb at the butcher's yesterday.
13. (billiards, snooker) A hollow triangle used for aligning the balls at the start of a game.
14. (slang, vulgar) A woman's breasts.
15. (climbing, caving) A friction device for abseiling, consisting of a frame with five or more metal bars, around which the rope is threaded.
    rappel rack
    abseil rack
16. (climbing, slang) A climber's set of equipment for setting up protection and belays, consisting of runners, slings, carabiners, nuts, Friends, etc.
    I used almost a full rack on the second pitch.
17. A grate on which bacon is laid.
18. (algebra) A set with a distributive binary operation whose result is unique.
19. (slang) A thousand, especially if proceeds of a crime.

Etymology 2

From Old English reċċan (“to stretch out, extend”).

verb

1. To place in or hang on a rack.
2. To torture (someone) on the rack.
   As the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt later recalled, his father, Henry VII's jewel-house keeper Henry Wyatt, had been racked on the orders of Richard III, who had sat there and watched. 2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin, published 2012, page 228
3. To cause (someone) to suffer pain.
4. (figurative) To stretch or strain; to harass, or oppress by extortion.
5. (billiards, snooker, pool) To put the balls into the triangular rack and set them in place on the table.
6. (slang, transitive) To strike in the testicles.
   Bike7125 raises a great point suggesting that cups could have been recommended "optional" equipment in school PE. I never got racked by a baseball or softball, but we did have a gym teacher, who insisted on a weekly session of a "cruelty sport" called bombardment. The idea was to throw basketballs at a line of guys, and try to hit them. (Guess where most gym bullys aimed!) 2 November 1999, Squad Leader, “CUPS Required for Gym Class?”, in alt.support.jock-strap (Usenet)
7. (firearms) To (manually) load (a round of ammunition) from the magazine or belt into firing position in an automatic or semiautomatic firearm.
8. (firearms) To move the slide bar on a shotgun in order to chamber the next round.
9. (mining) To wash (metals, ore, etc.) on a rack.
10. (nautical) To bind together, as two ropes, with cross turns of yarn, marline, etc.
11. (structural engineering) To tend to shear a structure (that is, force it to bend, lean, or move in different directions at different points).
    Post-and-lintel construction racks easily.
    The racking strength of a wall system is defined in terms of its ability to resist horizon­tal inplane shear forces. The shear, or racking, forces which act on wail systems arise primarily from wind. 1977, Roger L. Tuomi, David S. Gromala, “Racking Strength of Walls”, in USDA Forest Service Research Paper, number FPL 301

Etymology 3

From Middle English reken, from Old Norse reka (“to be drifted, tost”) The noun is from Middle English rak, rakke, from Middle English rek (“drift; thing tossed ashore; jetsam”), from the verb.

verb

1. To drive; move; go forward rapidly; stir.
2. To fly, as vapour or broken clouds.

noun

1. Thin, flying, broken clouds, or any portion of floating vapour in the sky.
   The winds in the upper region, which move the clouds above, which we call the rack, […] pass without noise. 1669, Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum or A Natural History in ten Centuries, page 32
   And the night rack came rolling up. 1851, Charles Kingsley, Three Fishers

Etymology 4

From Middle English rakken.

verb

1. (brewing) To clarify, and thereby deter further fermentation of, beer, wine or cider by draining or siphoning it from the dregs.

Etymology 5

See rack (“that which stretches”), or rock (verb).

verb

1. (of a horse) To amble fast, causing a rocking or swaying motion of the body; to pace.

noun

1. A fast amble.

Etymology 6

See wreck.

noun

1. (obsolete) A wreck; destruction.

Etymology 7

noun

1. (obsolete) A young rabbit, or its skin.
   Now, sir, you would say a skin is a skin, we say it is a ' whole,' or a 'half,' or a 'quarter,' or a 'rack,' or a 'sucker. Suckers are skins of infant rabbits, and of little value. Eight racks are equal to one whole. 13 February 1869, “Rabbit Skin”, in All the Year Round, page 247
   The skin of a sucker is white, of a quarter, black and white striped, of a rack all black, and of a best all white. 1879, Ure's Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines, page 380
   Those would be of different shades of colour according to the time of year at which they were produced, those bred about May-day undergoing no change from their white colour, but from a white rack become a whole skin; […] 1882, Bees, rabbits, and pigeons; how to breed and how to rear them
   Rabbit skins are sorted into wholes, halves, quarters, racks, and suckers, or very small skins. 1892, Henry Poland, Fur-bearing Animals in Nature and in Commerce, page 289

Etymology 8

noun

1. Alternative form of arak
   If it was my officers wanted a stone jar of rack or a dozen of bottled ale, I might manage 'em, but I'm nowhere with sacks. 1907, George Manville Fenn, Trapped by Malays: A Tale of Bayonet and Kris, page 347